Monday, June 04, 2007

More Affirmation of Death from Europe

Why are so many people encouraging doctors and the public to promote death rather than life? The Bible reports that God told His people that, "I have set before you life and prosperity and death and adversity." (DT 30:15) and later God says it again, "I have set before you death or life so choose life."

One would assume that the Israelites would choose life not death. But God knew what He was doing when He urged us all to pursue and choose life rather than death because we need to be reminded that life and peace and prosperity are better than poverty, death and destruction.

As I have written several times before on this blog, many countries are dying as nations. One of the main reasons for their devastating population losses is a culture that glorifies death not life. Take a look at part of an article that appeared recently:

Swiss suicide clinics 'helping depressives die'
By Bojan Pancevski, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:39am BST 03/06/2007


Prosecutors are calling for tougher regulations on Switzerland's assisted suicide clinics after uncovering evidence that some of the foreign clients they help to die are simply depressed rather than suffering incurable pain.

The clinics, which attract hundreds of foreigners, including Britons, every year, have been accused of failing to carry out proper investigations into whether patients meet the requirements of Switzerland's right-to-die laws.

In some cases, foreign clients are being given drugs to commit suicide within hours of their arrival, which critics say leaves doctors and psychologists unable to conduct a detailed assessment or to provide appropriate counselling.

Andreas Brunner, the senior prosecutor of the Zurich canton, told The Sunday Telegraph: "We are not trying to ban the so-called death tourism, but the outsourcing of suicide must be put under stricter control.

"Prosecutors look into every suicide, assisted or not, and there are many cases where it is not clear whether the assisted person has chosen death in full possession of their decision-making capacity. But investigations are difficult due to lack of evidence after the suicide.

"We, therefore, demand that the federal government amend the legislation to enable closer and lengthier monitoring of suicide patients before their deaths."

Mr Brunner said that there had been a number of cases where prosecutors or relatives of people who committed assisted suicide had taken legal action against doctors or organisations, although he declined to go into details.

Swiss laws allow doctors to provide "passive suicide assistance" to people who are terminally ill or in great suffering, with patients given a cocktail of drugs that they must administer themselves.

A handful of clinics provide the service, with two, Dignitas and Exit International, also offering it to foreigners, who make up a large proportion of the 300 assisted suicides that take place each year.

The merchants of death want no restrictions on their activities nor any light shown onto their dark deeds. Let us, they seem to say, push our mildly depressed clients go quietly into the darkness of eternity.

As a therapist for forty years I have worked diligently to relieve people in mental agony of their chronic pain. Never have I concluded that the answer to depression was death. My maternal grand father was deeply depressed and wanted to die. He just quit trying and "took to his bed" as everyone in our little village said. He was miserable.

Now we know that depression is entirely treatable with talk therapy, fellowship, prayer and sometimes medication. To take a depressed patent's money is about as unethical as anything I can imagine. No wonder Europe is dying. They are encouraging death rather than life.

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